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No
tentacle monsters, just each other.
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Kiyoshi
Kurosawa is one of a new wave of young Japanese directors blasting
out inventive pulp, sometimes using guerilla methods, something
just guerilla thinking. Some like Takashi (Audition) Miike
and Hideo (The Ring) Nakata can move smoothly between police
thrillers, erotic glam, comedy and gore. Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cure"
is a good recent example of a genre of genuinely disturbing horror
films emerging from Japan best heralded by Nakata's The Ring.
Although
made in 1997, "Cure" is travelling indie cinemas in North
America only now, possibly to compound on the critical frevor over
The Ring. A pychological thriller that was influenced by
Silence of the Lambs, "Cure" is actually a pretty
distant cousin, choosing a slowly building mystery over the dazzling
twists and turns of the of the Demme film.
The "Cure" begins with the shocking matter-of-fact murder
of a prostitute by a man who later is terrified by what he has done,
who had no motive. Yet, this is one of a string of killings that
is linked by the large X-shaped cut the individual murderers have
made on their victim's throats. Otherwise, there is no linking the
killings. Each suspect has connection to each other or to the other
victims.
Frustrating interrogation
The scene of the first killing not only introduces this gruesome
device into the story, it also is an interesting composition that
is repeated throughout the rest of "Cure". The scene of
the first killing is shocking because of how it erupts out of stillness.
The murderer, a businessman, walks in from the frame as the prostitute
watches innocently from the bed. Then out of nowhere the businessman
takes a pipe and brains her with it, efficiently, without emotion.
This
same structure you can see in a lot of Japanese films, built on
negative space and time. A scene begins with very little movement,
and then ends suddenly with an often savage action. Long, slow camera
movements if any. A stillness interrupted. In terms of space, a
rectangular composition filled with empty or repeated shapes, marked
by the subject, a human subject, off in an extreme corner.
Back
to the story now. Detective Takabe is trying to search for a pattern
in the killings aided by a conservative but helpful forensic psychiatrist.
At first their investigation is going nowhere, merely relating the
similar details of each case. The mystery here is not in the identity
of the provocateur of the killings, however, because moving in parallel
with the investigation story is the path of a mysterious young amnesiac
who it turns out is the common link.
Cop on the edge
A
young Japanese man, he meets strangers and declares that he doesn't
remember anything, not even a conversation held a moment before.
Each exchange he has with someone he meets, however, he probes them
for information about their lives, the people they love or hate.
And each meeting later ends in a murder after he has left.
In
other films the main story would be the hunt for this man, but halfway
through, the detective has caught up with the young man. Then it
becomes a contest of wills and further mystery as the detective
seeks to discover how the amnesiac is causing others to kill and
exactly why. In interrogation the amnesiac shows the ability to
frustrate and provoke each investigator with constant probing questions
and a weak, displaced disposition. It becomes obvious that the longer
the investigation goes on, the more vulnerable the detective himself
is to fall prey to what befell the others.
To
say any more would be to give away a fine, creeping thriller that
delves deep into notions of public consciousness and vulnerability.
The genius of "Cure" is that the killer is everyone and
the victims people they know. Whatever the perpertrator is doing,
it spreads like an unseen virus.
Viewers
used to the more standard definitions of a thriller are required
here to be patient with the constantly building structure of the
movie. It is also a movie that probably bears more than one viewing
and I must admit, I totally missed the meaning of the ending until
it was explained to me. That didn't stop me from appreciating the
subtle yet omnipresent sense of foreboding, the inevitability of
darkness that can't be kept behind locked doors or stopped by the
strongest authorities.
In
theatres
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